Chrysalis

[What do you see?]

[Much, prey. Dangerous.]

[Let me take a look.]

The vision was blurry, incomplete, but enough to show that the assessment was correct. They couldn’t go this way.

[Alright. Come back. Make sure you aren’t seen.]

Columbant withdrew her awareness from her distant pet, the small cavern in which she crouched snapping back into focus with disorienting clarity. Even after advancing the Skill to the second rank, it was still difficult to use, especially over a distance.

We can’t use that path, she thought to herself, which is going to severely limit our options. Are we cut off?

She consulted her tunnel map and began to plot out the routes still available to her. They’d ranged far from the meeting point, but there were still five days left before she was due to rendezvous with Magellant. She just hadn’t expected monster activity to be so high in this area.

[What do you think, Mistress? Shall we fight our way out?]

Her smartest pet, Rist, had long worked out how precarious their circumstances were. The flame demon had a good mind and a flair for fire magic, but was often too eager to engage, a tendency she had to be mindful of.

[It’s not ideal,] she confessed before she began to sketch out a rough version of her tunnel map on the floor with one leg. [We currently sit between two expanses that are unusually close together. This one is the shadow coral reef we explored earlier, this one we haven’t been into, but I suspect is a shadow swamp type. The spillover of monsters between the two is flooding the tunnels around us and causing the monsters to be higher tiers than I expected. If we try and fight our way out, we need to make it through these three junctions.]

She indicated the points where the tunnels met with an antenna while she continued to sketch with her leg. As she spoke, Rist watched with his ever-burning eyes, carefully taking in her words.

density, we might end up pulling more

the demon said, a little

option,] Columbant shook her head. [The death mana is just too thick in the stone down here. It’s sapping the life out of me

strange draining sensation she’d felt before. They could still dig through, but it would

said forcefully, [we dig

loyalty of the pets was on display. She would sacrifice them if needed to

she refuted. [We will all make it. I have a plan. Quietly train your Skills and wait for Slither to return. I need to think

space, retreating to the corner where he continued to practise his fire manipulation, twisting the flame into shapes and making them dance on his palm. Columbant skittered

with it, before reaching out with soothing energy. The beetle-beast groaned as the jagged wound across her flank began to seal over, bit by bit. A day after the fight that caused it,

are you, girl?] Columbant

head a little from her shell,

[Ready,] she insisted.

[No, girl. Not yet.]

[Ready!]

small ant felt a pain in

get some more food into

magic as well. Combined with a bit of

pet has gained experience. You have received

in. What had happened? Was Slither alright? She resisted the urge to reach out to him. He needed to concentrate in

she waited for the shadow creature to return, sighing with relief when he finally dropped down from the narrow opening above. A slug-variant of her own creation, Slither splatted onto the ground before reforming himself. Without a word, he crawled to where Garg lay and regurgitated a pile of Biomass. A

said. [That

Garg agreed, her gratitude rolling off her

jaws and in two quick chomps, the food was gone. Was it